This watchdog blog, by journalist Norman Oder, offers analysis, commentary, and reportage about the $4.9 billion project to build the Barclays Center arena and 16 high-rise buildings at a crucial site in Brooklyn. Dubbed Atlantic Yards by developer Forest City Ratner in 2003, it was rebranded Pacific Park in 2014 after the Chinese government-owned Greenland Group bought a 70% stake in 15 towers. New York State still calls it Atlantic Yards. Contact: AtlanticYardsReport[at]hotmail.com

Saturday, May 02, 2009

I haven't seen Brooklyn Boondoggle, an 11-minute short film about Atlantic Yards that will be screened on Tuesday, May 5, at the Galapagos Art Space along with other short documentaries, so I asked about it.

"We didn't interview any politicians, or major activists - we simply went out onto the streets and talked to our neighbors about their feelings about the project," producer Zara Serabian-Arthur of Meerkat Media said in an email message. "We talked to folks who are being kicked out of their homes, business owners hoping for increased sales, young people hoping for jobs, families concerned that the development would lower their quality of life."

"Since there are already a lot of people doing good, in-depth investigative work into the project (including, of course, yourself, and the folks that made "Brooklyn Matters"), and we are by no means experts, the film simply tries to start a dialogue about this kind of top-down, corporate-led development, and serve as a tool for people in any city that is experiencing these kind of issues to rethink this model and imagine alternatives."